Board members were advised that the mandated use of the buses and the inability to deploy them outside London meant accounting rules would require them to be considered TfL assets even if operators purchased them directly.

TfL is also underwriting the cost of the second crew member needed to supervise use of the vehicle’s open rear platform. Green members of the London Assembly have calculated the cost to taxpayers could be as high as £37m.

Critics have accused the Mayor of employing an army of health and safety inspectors merely to pursue a vanity project.

Speaking on Friday, the Mayor said he was “thrilled to confirm that route 24 will be the first in London to be converted to run an entire fleet of these world leading new buses, which will be the cleanest and greenest of their kind.”

Comments

I live near Dalston Junction and use the 38 route, up to a couple of times every day. The introduction of the New Buses for London, has generally been a good thing, with residents showing a lot of enthusiasm for the buses.

I am not sure, but I suspect, that the rear platform has not been responsible for even a minor slip. If it had been, it would have been all over the news. I have only heard of one road accident involving a new bus and apparently, that was another driver running into the back.

I haven’t seen any figures, but because of the second man or woman on the bus, they load and unload much quicker and often if you get a new 38 to come home from say Piccadilly Circus, it seems to pass its more humble cousins on the route.

In some ways changing a whole route to the new buses, will give very good figures to show the true worth or otherwise of the buses. It’s just a pity, that it’s a route I rarely use.

So we’ll not see them carrying day trippers off to Brighton, Margate, Southend or Clacton on summer weekends on private hires as they aren’t allowed to leave London. Back in the fifties fleets of RTs and RTLs could be seen with blank blinds packed with passengers and being thrashed along the A.12., the A.2 and the A.23 at a flat-out 40 mph. Those were the days!

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